


The FitzSimmons marvelously fluffy adventure

by Bacner



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU - Fairy Tale, Animals, Anthropomorphic, Birds, Chickens, Dinosaurs, F/M, Family, Fluff, Frogs, Gen, Insects, Multiverse, No Angst, S.H.I.E.L.D., bat, friends - Freeform, mouse - Freeform, some Mack & Yo-Yo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 05:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11155407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bacner/pseuds/Bacner
Summary: Across the universe, the FitzSimmons go on a marvelously fluffy adventure. No angst, honest!





	The FitzSimmons marvelously fluffy adventure

**Author's Note:**

> We could use some more fluffy adorable FitzSimmons, so here we are!

I

Once upon a time, there was Fitz. He was a dinosaur and his name was Leo, because he said so.

He was born, or rather he hatched from his egg one night in the incubator of ‘Bird Factory X3’, bursting from his egg in one dramatic burst and proclaiming, chipping as loudly as he could, to anyone who would hear him:

“My name is Fitz! Fitz!”

“What a wonderful name!” chipped another little chick, a female, who was even smaller than Fitz was, (for across the multiverse, Leo Fitz will always be small), and that was very small. “And my name is Simmons, mmm, Jemma Simmons! Hi!”

“Hello!” Fitz said bashfully. “My name is Fitz. Leo Fitz! Hi! Nice to meet you! You’re a very nice dinosaur, even if you’re somewhat on the small size!”

“I’ll never!” Jemma half-huffed half-chipped, very indignantly. “I’m no dinosaur, and neither are you! We’re birds, Leo, birds!”

“Humph!” Leo glared. If he had fingers, he would give Jemma the bird right about now, but since in this dimension they were not human, he could not, so he did not. “Maybe _you’re_ a bird, but _I’m_ a dinosaur, so there!” he said instead.

“Humph!” Jemma said instead and the duo began ignoring each other for the next three or four days. During that time they just fed on some sort of a poultry food mix, (ground bones, corn, animal protein, etc.), hanged around each other, for there wasn’t too much space to go around, (the FitzSimmons were just two out of 39312 baby chicks of the batch), and did their best not to act on their budding friendship.

And then, on the fourth or the fifth day, Fitz, Simmons, and 35 other chicks were put into a container, which got loaded onto a car and driven away. The car, (or even a truck), was dark, noisy, crumpled, full of other containers that contained other baby birds, (or dinosaurs, if Fitz cared about it at that moment), so the chicks were scared and chipped as loud as they could, but the driver, (who had a certain physical similarity to Mack, **cough** ), was driving a noisy truck, and so he didn’t hear them.

Eventually the chicks grew hoarse and fell silent…just as the truck arrived at a farm. The lady of the farm, (who had a certain physical similarity to Yo-Yo Rodriguez, **cough** ), came to meet the driver and to oversee the unloading of her new baby birds – or so she said. In reality her and the driver began to flirt with each other quickly enough, somewhat clumsily but still genuinely, and so neither of them noticed one of the containers opened and a tiny yellow ball of fluff fell out, scared into silence – and it was followed by another one, equally scary but just as determined.

If anyone was interested, the baby birds in question were the FitzSimmons.

 

II

It should be noted that the FitzSimmons were lucky: at this moment in time they were still young enough, and small enough, and lightweight enough, not so much to land as to float down to the ground, (the fact it was a windy day didn’t hurt them either). That said, the shock and the newness and everything about that day did cause them to faint, and so faint they did. They fell unconscious before they had landed, and when they awoke everyone was gone and they were all alone in a meadow, and they never seen a meadow before, and-

“Um, Simmons? This is another fine mess you have gotten us into,” Fitz said, doing his best to sound like some great confident rooster than his father supposedly was. (Neither Fitz nor Simmons knew their parents having hatched in an incubator, remember?)

“What do you mean, ‘another’? This is our first mess!” Jemma snapped back before sidling over to Fitz. “Um, Leo? You have any idea how we get out of it? Where’s ‘it’ is, anyhow?”

“Yeah, well, we don’t know what ‘it’ is either,” Fitz replied uncomfortably, (he was never comfortable admitting his shortcomings, you know?).

“Excuse me?” someone else spoke before Jemma could. “I’m not a ‘what’! I am a ‘who’! My name is Tripplett!”

There was a pause as the FitzSimmons looked up, and promptly fell upon the tiny rear ends: the colt that they were speaking with was not that old himself, but he still was much bigger than the FitzSimmons were.

“Hello!” he spoke so cheerfully that the FitzSimmons immediately stopped being scared of him – he was just too friendly to be evil. “I’m Trip! And you are?”

“We’re the FitzSimmons!” the FitzSimmons said cheerfully. “Hi! What is this place?” (No matter who they were, or where they were, the FitzSimmons would learn to speak together as one ASAP).

“Oh, this is the meadow,” Trip said brightly. “We live here!”

“Do we also live here?” the FitzSimmons looked at each other: somehow, the meadow just did not feel homey to them.

Trip thought about it, (right now, comparatively, he was not much older than the FitzSimmons were). “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “There aren’t too many of your kind around, you know?”

“Our kind?” the FitzSimmons frowned: it sounded somewhat exclusive and not very nice.

“Oh, you know, birds,” Trip said vaguely.

Fitz and Simmons exchanged looks. “Ha!” Jemma said triumphantly, (neither she nor Leo forgot about their initial bird vs. dinosaur argument yet). She had enough self-control as to not to tell Leo ‘In your face’, but Fitz got the idea.

“Yeah, well, what _are_ birds?” he grouchily asked their new friend instead.

“Oh, uh, you know, they have wings,” the new answer was just as vague as the first one, (remember, Trip was not much older or more experienced than the FitzSimmons were in this universe).

It would be anyone’s guess as to where the discussion would go next, but someone called out to Trip, (a herd of horses was grazing nearby, actually), and he had to go.

“I have to go,” he regretfully explained to his new friends. “Coming, ma! Bye!” And he raced off.

The FitzSimmons were left to their own devices once again.

 

III

The FitzSimmons looked – first after the retreating Trip, (he soon vanished from their line of vision), and then just at their new surroundings. The meadow was green, the sky – blue, and the sun – more yellow than even they were, and so bright that they had to look away. The smells were wonderful, the breeze was warm, and the grass not only green but so tall that the FitzSimmons were completely covered and submerged in it.

The flowers, on the other hand, were most certainly _not_ green, but of completely different colors – yellow, red, white, violet… They smelled wonderful, and there were birds flying from one flower to another, just as the FitzSimmons’ new friend told them. Enthused, the FitzSimmons raced to talk to them, but surprisingly the birds didn’t share their enthusiasm but would fly away from the chicks as quickly as they could, leaving the FitzSimmons kind of confused – they were trying their hardest to be their most polite, you know!

Fortunately, a very big bird, almost as big as the FitzSimmons themselves, landed onto a blue-and-yellow flower nearby from them. Up close, the FitzSimmons could see her six legs, long, fuzzy, quivering antennae, and wide multicolored wings that seemed to shimmer with all the colors of the rainbow whenever she moved. In short, she was beautiful, but she did not look anything like the FitzSimmons did, **cough**.

Regardless of this worrisome realization, the FitzSimmons slowly made their way towards her and said hello.

“Hello, lady!” they spoke brightly, (though not as brightly as they did with Trip). “Can we ask you something?”

The butterfly in question, (whose name was Victoria Hand, BTW), was so big that she was not very intimidated by the FitzSimmons.

“Well, since you’re so polite, ask!” she replied.

“Are you a bird?” the FitzSimmons asked.

Victoria gave them such a disdainful glare that they immediately understood that they made a mistake. “Please don’t leave!” they chipped in fear.

“How could you…even have such an idea? Such a horrible idea!” Victoria did not fly away but neither did she warm up to the FitzSimmons. “Hmm?”

“Well, um, you can fly?” the FitzSimmons said softly. (FYI, Fitz still was not sold on the idea that he and Jemma actually _were not_ dinosaurs instead, but still. Right now was not the time to bring up that argument).

Victoria’s glare grew even more intense if such a thing was possible.

“Seriously, you vertebrates are _so_ stupid,” she finally reached her conclusion and flew away.

 

IV

Slowly, the day was turning towards evening, and the FitzSimmons still had not found another bird. (Real or otherwise). This was hard on their spirits, and to add insult to injury, (or injury to insult?) none of their interlocutors would confirm that they were birds too. Instead, they promptly avoided or ignored the youngsters, though one large beetle even promised to give them a whopping ‘unseen from the time of the Carboniferous’!

“Fitz, I think that there was a mistake somewhere,” Simmons commented to her partner as the two of them huddled together under a tree for the night. It was not a big tree; more of a shrub, really, but the FitzSimmons were small enough to consider it a proper tree all the same. In addition, despite this being early summer, the evening was getting to be rather chilly for the two youngsters, so for now they had other things on their mind besides vegetation – things like a need for warmth, and a fledgling fear of the dark, (even if they _were_ dinosaurs, as Fitz insisted – not very loudly, because the night was promising to be a dark one as clouds were coming up from the north).

“No, really?” answered someone else who was not Fitz, (or Trip, for that matter). “A mistake? Boy, won’t Victoria be happy to hear this!”

Fitz and Simmons looked upwards. The sun was gone from the sky, but there was still enough light to see the big hoary bat that had emerged from the tree hollow above them and was currently looking down on them, holding onto the tree trunk with his claws. (Bats have claws – both on their thumbs and on their hind feet precisely for that sort of thing).

Now, a hoary bat may not be quite in the same league as the false vampire bats of South America (and their cousins from Africa, Australia and etc.) are, but the FitzSimmons were still very small and young baby birds (or dinosaurs, it wasn’t relevant in this context), so yeah, it was a good thing that Grant Ward wasn’t evil in this universe. Rather he scooted down the tree, grabbed Fitz by his nape and carried him into tree hollow, followed by Simmons.

Inside the tree hollow, it was still dark, but much warmer than it was outside and less windy, too. It did not smell very nice, but the FitzSimmons, being baby chicks, did not have a very good sense of smell, (if they were baby tyrannosaurs things would have been different, probably), and for all of their fluffy adorability they did not smell so good themselves either, (baby chicks generally do not, BTW), so they did not mind.

“Now where were we?” a familiar voice asked. The FitzSimmons turned around and saw the butterfly earlier from this day sitting on the tree hollow’s wall, her wings now closed in a manner typical to all butterflies when they are resting, and thus looking more subdued than she did earlier today.

“Hello,” the FitzSimmons spoke politely, as they were positive that the beetle sitting next to her was the same one who had threatened them with a whopping. ‘About earlier-“

“Yes, I do have to apologize – Izzy here was way out of line,” Victoria flicked one of her antennae at the beetle. “And for the record, before we all go to rest for the night, where did all this foolishness started? Where did you get this daft idea-?”

“A friend of ours told us that birds have wings and can fly?” Jemma pointed to one of her own wings. By now both she and Fitz had figured out, somewhat, that wings could be different, period and that did not give them a big happy for some reason.

“You vertebrates!” Victoria huffed again. “We insects can fly, but we’re no birds! Bats, like Grant Ward over here, too fly, but they are not birds either. Not everyone who flies is a bird!”

Both Fitz and Simmons gaped.

“And moreover,” Victoria shot them a look, “some birds can’t fly, though they still have wings. Ostriches cannot fly. Their cousin the kiwi bird cannot fly. The penguin cannot fly. Ergo, not every bird can fly!”

“And on this note, the lesson is over, Victoria,” Grant spoke gently from behind the chicks. “The youngsters are about to fall over from exhaustion. Let them sleep.”

“Who are you calling youngsters? We aren’t sleepy!” the FitzSimmons protested – and promptly fell asleep. After all, they were quite young and tired, (and had an overload of excitement and exercise for the day).

 

V

The morning dawned bright and clear and the FitzSimmons awoke ‘cause Grant Ward extracted them from his home in the same way he had got them into it the last evening. In addition, they were kind of thirsty and hungry…so they drank some morning dew and ate some wild seeds…and decided that this was not their sort of food that they liked…

“Um, excuse me – Grant?” Fitz turned to the bat in question, who stifled a yawn as he began to move back into his home to sleep for the day, (bats are normally nocturnal, remember?).

“Yes?” Grant shot him a look – actually, he gave both Leo and Jemma a strange sort of a look, not so much hostile as wistful. “What is it – Fitz?”

“Um, it’s about birds,” Leo decided not to mention dinosaurs in order not to confuse the issue. “How do Jemma and I find them?”

“Birds can sing,” Grant, thought this over. “They may not always fly, but they can sing.”

“Okay, thank you!” Jemma said brightly. “And thank you for your hospitality!”

“Don’t mention it,” Grant shot a look over the FitzSimmons’ heads into some direction. “Good luck to you – to both of you,” he added. “See you around – maybe.” He turned around went into his home. (Victoria, Izzy and the others were already gone for the day).

If the FitzSimmons had seen his facial expression at the moment they would have found it very sad and lonely, but they did not – instead, they were already off searching for their new-new friends, the other birds. This time, they tried to listen rather than to watch, and so before long they did hear a song:

“Ribbit!” it went. And – “ribbit”.

The song was not the most articulate, but the FitzSimmons rushed towards it all the same. For one thing, they found it quite lovely. For another, and a much more important reason, they still really wanted to find the other birds.

And they found one, it seemed. She was sitting on the shore of a pond, singing, and looking very impressive – shiny green with big shiny eyes. She was seemingly ignoring the FitzSimmons, instead focusing on her song:

“Ribbit!” it went. And – “ribbit”.

This went on for quite a while, until the song was finished and the FitzSimmons snapped out of it. “Hello,” they said politely.

“Hello to you too, youngsters,” the singer said brightly. “Are you lost?”

“Maybe,” the FitzSimmons exchanged a look – between a poor breakfast and the wonderful singing, (remember, they did not have anything to compare it with), they were somewhat confused themselves. “Um, lady? Are you a bird?”

“My name,” the singer said, smiling broadly with that mouth of hers, “is Raina. And where did you get this idea?”

“Well, we were told that birds can sing, and you sing! You sing wonderfully!” the FitzSimmons exclaimed. “We never heard anyone like you in our lives!” (Considering that they hatched from their respective eggs less than a week ago, the compliment was more ambiguous than it sounded like).

“Well aren’t you the clever tadpoles!” Raina exclaimed, for she was really a bullfrog. Not unlike the hoary bat, the American bullfrog is a very competent predator in its’ own right, and it is one of the biggest North American frogs period. The FitzSimmons, conversely, were very small baby birds and things could’ve went very badly for them, but – they had plenty of angst (and worse) in the core universe, so this one decided to cut them a break instead.

“You are correct,” Raina was continuing, meanwhile. “I am a wonderful singer! However, I am no bird, I am a frog! So’s my man Gordon over there,” she gestured with her hind leg out into the pond, where an even bigger pair of eyes, belonging to an even bigger bullfrog – a male – was watching the FitzSimmons interacting with Raina. (And yes, in the core universe, Gordon was eyeless, so let us chalk this to some dramatic irony instead, shall we?)

Meanwhile, the FitzSimmons were stunned.

“You’re not a bird?” they gasped. “But we were told that only birds could sing!”

“Says who?” Raina frowned in thought, (not that the FitzSimmons got it).

“Grant Ward?” the FitzSimmons exchanged a look between each other. “He lied?”

“Nah, not really,” Raina waved a foreleg in dismissal. “It’s just that now his girlfriend broke up with him he’s not the same anymore, to the detriment of Victoria and the rest of her crowd.” She looked away, thoughtful, wanting to elaborate more on this subject, before changing her mind. “Anyhow, that’s not important, what important is that we frogs are better singers than those much-praised birds, believe it! A long time ago, before birds and mammals, before even those much-praised dinosaurs, we – frogs and the other amphibians – were the first backboned singers, and we’re better at it than anyone else, vertebrate or invertebrate!”

(In reality, frogs are fairly modern amphibians, but apparently, Raina could never be fully honest in any universe, yeah.)

“Really?” Fitz looked away: Raina’s dismissal of his favorite dinosaurs hurt him, spiritually speaking. Jemma noticed this and gave him a hug. Raina, however, was a on a roll, (she did always love to hear the sound of her own voice, you know?), and did not notice it.

“Oh yes!” she said passionately. “These days, everybody is a singer. The birds, at least, have some semblance of a voice that can pass, and the others, they just do not need it. All hail the evolution! Can you imagine? Singing with your legs, hearing with your legs?”

“Excuse us?” Jemma shot Raina a look. “What are you – talking about?”

“This guy, over there,” Raina said crossly, as she pointed one of her front legs towards a large green grasshopper in the distance. “Lincoln Campbell. You hear him sing? He’s not a bird, let me tell you!”

“…So what do we do now, where do we go from here?” Leo quietly asked after listening for some time to the grasshopper’s – Lincoln’s – song. (He and Simmons still thought that Raina’s was better). “Where do we find the other birds? After all, everyone flies, everyone sings-“

“Aw, let me give you some advice,” Raina said, smiling kindly. (And it was easy for her, with that mouth). “You want to find birds? Look for their nests! Wherever there are nests, there are always birds, believe me!”

“Okay, thank you!” the FitzSimmons said brightly and raced-off – just not too fast, lest they trigger a hunting reflex in Raina (and Gordon).

 

VI

Despite their relative slowness, (although the FitzSimmons still hadn’t mustered the ‘slow’ mode – right now they had two: ‘fast’ and ‘tired’), the FitzSimmons found a nest quickly enough – a smooth, round one, with an entrance/exit hole in the side, (rather than in the top or bottom)…and shaken all over from the inside, full of some angry, indignant, and/or miserable squeaks:

“Stupid, stupid, stupid Ward… new girlfriends already…idiot…Victoria Hand egged him on…idiot…”

The FitzSimmons were kind of naïve (baby birds, in this universe), but the name of Ward struck a chord in them, and so they stopped and exchanged a look, trying to mentally communicate between each other as they have done in many other universes. Here, however, this technique of theirs still needed work and so they were at a loss – and also lost for second day in a row; considering that the FitzSimmons themselves were not quite a week old from their hatching, this was a lot of time for them now!

And so they mustered their courage and called out:

“Excuse us, sir or madam, but are you a bird?”

A face, or perhaps a muzzle, looked out of the nest, and it was not a bird, but a mouse – a harvest mouse, one of the smallest (size-wise) mice in the world. What it, or rather she, lacked in size, she clearly made in spunk and attitude, as her glare, aimed at the FitzSimmons, indicated.

“What?” she asked them, (not very nicely). “Can’t a mouse be miserable in peace?”

“A mouse?” the FitzSimmons blinked. “You’re not a bird?”

“No!” the mouse in question snapped as she climbed out of her nest. “I’m a mouse, a harvest mouse, and my name is Daisy. I’m not a bird, can’t you see?”

“Yes we can,” Simmons agreed, getting the idea that Ms. Daisy was not going to be very friendly with them for some reason. “Leo?”

“Totally!” Fitz readily agreed with his companion. “You don’t look very bird-like at all! You look kind of like our friend Ward, just without wings-“

The mouse blinked and stared at them with big, attentive, wet eyes. “Ward? You know the big idiot?” she asked softly.

“Oh yeah, we stayed last night at his place,” Jemma nodded before Leo could stop her – clearly the mouse had an issue with Ward, and-

“Last night? You’re the chicks?” Daisy frowned in thought.

“We prefer the term ‘birds’. Or maybe ‘dinosaurs’,” Leo said airily, “but yes, that was us-“

“Excuse me,” Daisy the mouse said brightly. She climbed into her nest, pulled out a bundle that looked kind of like a parachute made from dandelions, (this is a fairy tale, remember?) and raced off, leaving the FitzSimmons behind, confused.

“Did she just leave us behind?” Leo asked Jemma as the two youngsters sat among the cattails where Daisy’s home of a nest was located. (I.e., they were not too far away from Raina and Gordon’s pond home still). “Um-“

“Leo,” Jemma said carefully, as her feminine intuition gave her a subtle nudge in Jemma’s mental landscape. “I don’t think that _everything_ in the world is about _us_ -“

“I never said that!” Leo got flustered for some reason. “It’s just that I will never leave you behind, and-“

“…” It was Jemma’s turn to get flustered, (for some reason, **cough** ). “Thank you, Leo,” she said softly, and began to preen herself. Leo followed suit, however clumsily, (they were very young, remember, so their subconsciousness could only do so much at this time), and standing side by side they kind of forgot that they were still hungry, when Daisy landed before them, from the sky, having utilized her dandelion parachute, (as a harvest mouse she was fairly lightweight, which was important too, BTW).

“Hi again!” he spoke in a much more cheerful tone, nothing like how she sounded when they met the first time around. “Sorry about the curt greeting before – I and Grant were in a rough patch in our relationship, and you might’ve gotten caught in it. Anyways, what was that about birds?”

“Um, we’re looking for them? ‘Cause we are birds ourselves?” Jemma said brightly, indicating Daisy’s home with a nod of her head. “And you have a nest, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m not a bird – I’m a mammal!” Daisy said brightly, “and this really isn’t a nest, more of a supply depo for S.H.I.E.L.D. supplies-“ (Let us just assume that this universe had some sort of an S.H.I.E.L.D. incarnation, all the same, shall we?)

“What supplies?” Leo blinked.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. supplies; S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for – never mind, you’re civilians,” Daisy shook her head, “and busy with problems of your own, right?”

“Yes, we’re looking for other birds, not mammals – what is a mammal, anyhow?” Jemma nodded.

“Meh, mammals are beings like Ward and me – we bear live young, while you birds bear eggs,” Daisy rubbed her belly absentmindedly, but the FitzSimmons were too busy conversing with each other

“Eggs? Live young?” The youngsters, (the FitzSimmons _were_ younger than Daisy and Grant were, for example), exchanged looks. They were vaguely remembering some white, smooth and round things from which they – and their siblings – had come from. “Oh! Eggs! Thank you Ms. Daisy!” they thanked their new friend and raced-off to search for them.

“Good luck!” Daisy waved at their retreating backsides, before smiling wistfully – and leaving herself to move back at her place with Grant. ( **Cough** ).

 

VII

The FitzSimmons, meanwhile, seemed to have gotten their eye-to-foot coordination improved, as when a small hill rose before them, they were able to stop in time rather than just plow into it instead.

Okay, it was actually a mound, made out of dry dead twigs and fallen needles, (spruce or fir rather than pine), and the FitzSimmons didn’t plow into it, but they did stop just in front of it, causing the debris to flutter, revealing a multitude of white, egg-like objects…that were too small even by the FitzSimmons’ standards, (and the FitzSimmons themselves were quite small, remember?), but they did look tasty, and so the duo began to eat them – with enthusiasm. Until…

“Just what do you think you’re doing!” someone yelled loudly at them.

The FitzSimmons looked around, and discovered that more insects surrounded them. Unlike Izzy Hartley or Victoria Hand, however, these insects were wingless, but they were also angry; they were small, but they outnumbered the FitzSimmons by a lot.

“Hello,” the FitzSimmons would have smiled, but because they were birds, (or dinosaurs, it did not matter right now), they did not, not really. “Hi. We are the FitzSimmons. What’s up?”

“You’re eating our eggs, that’s what’s up!” the insects’ leader snapped.

“Your eggs?” the FitzSimmons blinked and looked at each other, before looking back at their new interlocutor. “But you’re no bird, are you?”

“No, I’m an ant as are the rest of my forces!” the ants’ leader glared. “And what’s this foolishness about birds?”

“Birds bear eggs?” Fitz carefully suggested. “Mr.-?”

“That’s General Talbot to you, vertebrate!” the ant glared. “And yeah, birds bear eggs – half a dozen of them at once. Big whoop! Why, our queens, on the other hand, can produce millions of them at that same amount of time! Even thousands!..”

“Okay, thank you, general, sir,” the FitzSimmons exchanged a look and quietly left the anthill for a nearby shrub – they were bigger than the ants, but there were only two of them, and Talbot’s ants numbered, well, a much greater number, and so the FitzSimmons got scared.

Subdued, very much unlike their usual vibrant selves, they made their way to the shrub in question, and sat down beneath it.

“Leo, WTH is going on around here?” Jemma asked, quietly. “Bats can fly, but they aren’t birds. Mice make nests, but they are not birds. Frogs can sing, but they are not birds. Insects can fly _and_ bear eggs, but they also are not birds. Leo, where are the birds?”

“Oh, youngsters,” someone exhaled from up above. “You find birds by following the feathers!”

And indeed, a feather – a beautiful and shiny one – fluttered down to the FitzSimmons, borne by the breeze. The duo stared at it, and the speaker continued.

“There are birds who don’t sing and birds that don’t make nests, there are birds who don’t fly and are outright wingless, but never there had been a bird without feathers.”

“Oh.” The FitzSimmons looked at each other. “Thank you, Ms. Tree!” they called out to the shrub in question, (remember, they were that young and that small), before turning back to each other.

“Leo, we ourselves don’t have any feathers!” Jemma exclaimed. “What if we ourselves _aren’t_ birds?”

“So, we _are_ dinosaurs?” Leo blinked, thoughtfully. Between Victoria Hand, and Raina, and others, he was beginning to think that being a dinosaur was overrated, but he was not about to admit it to Jemma yet.

“Excuse me!” And someone about the FitzSimmons size, but much more mature landed next to them. “It wasn’t a _tree_ who’d been talking to you, but my wife, Bobbi!”

“Bobbi?” the FitzSimmons looked at the newcomer. “And who are you?”

“Lance Hunter!” the newcomer puffed his chest. “And neither Bobbi nor I are trees, we’re sparrows! See?” he jabbed his wing upwards. The FitzSimmons looked, and sure enough, another sparrow was sitting on her (or their?) nest, while nearby Lincoln Campbell was complaining to Victoria and Izzy as to how Raina and Gordon had chased him up a tree _again_ , and he was no katydid, he was a grasshopper, so now that Grant and Daisy were together once more, could they do something about the awful amphibians?..

“…Anyways,” Lance came to his senses first, when it became obvious that Lincoln would be going in this way for a while still, “we’re sparrows and you’re chickens, which aren’t proper birds, but still!”

“Okay,” the FitzSimmons exchanged looks that were not exactly happy. “What do you mean, we aren’t proper birds? And where can we find them?”

“Oh, uh,” Lance looked sheepish – he did not intend to be deliberately rude to the FitzSimmons, you know? “Well, there – there they are!” He indicated in another direction, and when the FitzSimmons looked, they saw a newcomer there – a big, beautiful, multicolored bird, followed by a second one, smaller in size, less physically impressive and colorful, but somehow more approachable and homey. (If anyone cares to know they were this universe’s answer to Phil and Mel, **cough** ).

“Well, there they are, your parents,” Lance raised his eyes upwards, and saw Daisy flying by on Grant’s back; she gave him a supportive wave. “Go and meet them! Fly to your mommy and daddy!”

And the FitzSimmons did. As fast as their legs could carry them.

End

PS: And the reunion/first meeting was happy all around, because while the FitzSimmons were worried that they were too young, Phil and Melinda were worried that they were too old – but that is another story.

 


End file.
